Margaret Greene (1922-2016) was the chairwoman of the Samish Indian Nation from 1971 to 1974 and again from 1987 to 1996. Greene was descended from Samish people who moved to the Lummi or Swinomish reservations, while many other Samish chose to remain in their ancestral islands. Greene kept her Samish identity and fought tirelessly for Samish rights. During Greene's terms as chair, the Samish were struggling to regain federal recognition after the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) ruled that the Samish tribe had ceased to exist. However, the Samish fought this decision for decades until the 1990s, when a federal judge overturned the BIA's decision and ordered them to change it, on the grounds that the bureau had denied the Samish due process.

This image shows Margaret Greene standing near the Maiden of Deception Pass story pole at Deception Pass State Park. The Maiden of Deception Pass is a 23-foot pole carved of Western Red Cedar by sculptor Tracy Powell and was unveiled in 1983. It is based on the story of Ko-kwal-alwoot, a Samish woman who married a man from below the sea to ensure abundant food from the sea, and subsequently became a guardian spirit for her people.

Caption information source: "Samish fight for existence," by Paul Shukovsky, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 5, 1992, page A1.
Caption information source: "Margaret Greene leader in Samish's federal recognition fight, walks on," by Richard Allen Walker, April 12, 2016, ICT, retrieved from https://ictnews.org/archive/margaret-greene-leader-in-samishs-federal-recognition-fight-walks-on